NCJ Number
84946
Date Published
1982
Length
48 pages
Annotation
An analysis of the Wisconsin experience with the deinstitutionalization of status offenders is useful in identifying the factors giving rise to deinstitutionalization policies and in assessing the manner in which some types of new policies affect services to children.
Abstract
Before 1970, the deinstitutionalization of status offenders was decidedly not State policy. Wisconsin policies were consistent with the most progressive philosophy at the time, an interpretation of parens patriae that encouraged high levels of intervention and an informal mode of handling youth. By 1970, however, the progressive tradition itself encouraged a willingness to consider the new deinstitutionalization-oriented suggestions emanating from national sources at the end of the 1960's. Increased centralization of institutional placements also give the State government some important leverage in altering local policies as many of the placement facilities controlled by local governments were closed down. At the same time, the State government used the nationwide call for decentralization to legitimate decisions that forced local governments to find alternatives to institutionalization in dealing with children. Still, most agree that there is a lack of local programs to provide in-home services to status offenders, and some officials desire further reductions in the use of treatment facilities. There are also some concerns over what might be a higher level of intervention in the lives of children. Reform in Wisconsin continues, and the reverberations of the deinstitutionalization movement are not yet finished. Twenty-one references are listed, along with the names of officials interviewed.